[The author didn't address the letter formally, but it was written to Abby Turner.]Sunday.
I've gotten as far as the train and it's just going out of the Penn. station. With me is blood from several rabbits. That we got on Friday and titrated for antihuman amboceptor yesterday. Also two Noguchi antigens, the acetone insoluble fraction of alcoholic extracted beef hearts, and last, but not least, a collection of typhoid, paratyphoid & dysentery. The cultures and antigens are living in a ginger snap can in which I invested this A.M. I left Eva the snaps, about a yard of them. The blood is in a thermos bottle.
No Washington this trip. The Penn. R.R. offered me a through passage to Louisville in 25 hours, so I'm going down through Pittsburg Cincinnati. It was quite unexpected because I planned to go by the C. & O. until the very moment I bought a ticket. Even began buying it talking about the C. & O. Eva said at once that she'd not come down when I told her my total fare & sleeper was $37.63[.] The Pullman itself hasn't gone up so much, $5.50 it was, but there is a certificate which has to be gotten before the Pullman, said certificate being $4.03. Well, I expect I'll have a penny left when I get to Louisville. I pinned it carefully to my shirt just as a porter ushered a gentleman into the car. Before that it had been quite private.
Up to date * have a compartment to myself. It's almost cold and I'm wondering if a frost nipped Massachusetts' gardens last night - but it's fine to start south or west, Dr. Pike calls it.
Dr. Noguchi was very nice, said when his new book came out he'd be glad to send me a copy. I hope he'll remember and asked me to write how I got along. Nice man, he is, married to an American woman I understand.
We are going through Newark now. I've got to get out a time table or my pocket dictionary to see where I'm going. Haven't had a chance to see yet.
Having been presented with a pillow I am not looking like an invalid. I preferred a stool but they don't serve them on sleeping cars.
We have now left Harrisburg. For a while we crossed and followed what the porter says is the Susquehanna - lovely in spots. About as wide as the Connecticut with steep hills coming down to the banks in places. Not unlike Holyoke & Nonotuck
in places, but the hills seemed more abrupt. The river winds and we moved with it. - in fact we seem to be beside it - or another river - again, and first the sun comes in on the right and next on the left. We also have heat in the steam pipes.Dinner was good - wheatless until Sept. '18 - and interesting because there are a number of boys, evidently just drafted, going south. They get their meals in the diner and apparently there is a limit to the price the government pays for dinners because almost everybody had hashed brown potatoes, cocoa or coffee & cake. Not every drafted man surely can have such a fondness for hashed brown so that all would order the same dish. As you may imagine they were an unusual group in a dining car - collarless, many of them tieless and not exactly at home, but then I didn't see my ice cream fork until I was most done with desert [sic] and blissfully used a spoon. One poor boy didn't seem to eat anything, just drank some coffee and looked out of the window with his head in his hand. The men across from me ate all they could get and remarked that they'd make up for it when they got to camp. One acted deaf & couldn't hear his neighbor ask for the sugar, etc. but most of them seem so pathetic, - some obviously in collar & tie and best suits for the occasion and others tough and glad of their neglected appearance, but all unacquainted and sober. I wish I could have seen what was happening when we left the Penn station for it was full of cheers rising from the lower regions. The porter said it was soldiers coming in but didn't say "in" from where.
The Penn. sun is peculiar, setting first in the north, a minute later in the south, but never in the west -, but it's full in my eyes[.] We are following a river still, quite close to it all the way but the hills aren't as high or abrupt, country just rolls a little in spots.
Now the sun is going down in the east back of hills like Pelham's. Big cornfield occasionally. In the region of Harrisburg there were loads of coal standing in cars, all sizes. Have just stopped at a dismal village - terrible looking dirty old house "Hotel Ashton" and a bright new store, name of village is Mifflin. More coal in cars.
Dropped with P. & S. Wednesday and talked with Mr. May. Dr. Dwyer is going to give the summer course, & Dr. Frankel (♀). Evidently Mr. May expects Dr. Dwyer to be head of the department next year as far as the work goes & Dr. Jobling who comes as head of the pathology depart. is to represent it for academic purposes such as committee work. I do not understand the arrangement, but Mr. May did remark that he didn't see how Dr. Dwyer could take care of the departmental work with all his other duties. Anyway I'm still not regretting my change.
More nice hills. Porter says this is still the Susquehanna. Much smaller now and all ripply as if it were shallow. Makes me think of the White Mts. the way long valleys go up into the mountain here. Hills fairly high and wooded.
The man across the way is about to be put to bed. I must watch. Goodnight, dearie I wish you were along. You'd like this part of the ride and I'd like your company.
Monday A.M.
The porter has me up and dressed. Curious nights in sleeping cars, aren't they? The man across the way was put to bed with 2 inches of open window at his feet. It didn't seem much so I asked for a whole open window with my head at it. Porter was very accommodating and I had a chill most all night. Slept with my specimens at my feet died [?] if the blood was as cold as I it is keeping perfectly. It wasn't so bad, though, because I propped the pillows in front of the window and every time I woke up I could look out on a lovely moonlight night. Once we were crossing a river, quite large, maybe the Ohio, and several times we were in stations - Pittsburgh! This A.M. we lost that hour we saved by the daylight saving scheme which was nice because I could stay in bed a long time and still get up early.
The country is flat here, with hedgerows and clumps of trees at intervals and farm houses without regard to anything in the way of roads. The cornfields are much larger than those we passed yesterday and there are large herds of cows pastured along. They haven't the New England sense of early rising. Occasionally a few pigs sport around in the fields. We are at Xenda [sic] now.
My arm is terribly lame from the struggle I had yesterday with my suitcase. Very heavy.
Cincinnati - 11:15
Now on my last lap. We reach L. at 2.50 and this train is terribly prompt. Beats the northern ones by four miles. You'll never have time to read all the things I've written at intervals. It's a bad letter for I've had to look out the window so much in between words and I've started a letter home too so its [sic] confusing. Anyway you'll know I've remembered about you often and am loving you much.